The American Civil War
 

We've been rewriting the history of the War for Southern Independence, the War of Northern Aggression, or the Civil War since day one. Slavery was a big part of the war, but just like in Iraq the reasons for the war shifted to keep the people on board. Lincoln himself started out saying it was about the Union.

"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.
What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause."

August 22, 1862 - Letter to Horace Greeley

The Republican Party was the heir to the Whig Party. They were the party of "internal improvements". They more or less believed in Hamilton's powerful centralized government and an industrial America as opposed to the Democrats adherence to Thomas Jefferson's de-centralized vision of states rights in an agricultural land. These two visions grew increasingly incompatible with big political battles over taxation. The Republicans supported import taxes to support homegrown industry in the North, which unduly burdened the South because it relied on trade with England. The big government Republicans wanted federal funding for roads and canals to support their manufacturing, while the Southerners wanted to maintain their agricultural economy.

Economics...

I have heard that they freed the slaves because they had too but I never heard the official reason. My best guess was an economic reason or that there wasn't enough people to keep them in slavery since so many people died but that doesn't seem right...

I don't think that is correct. As Griff stated the arguments and fight continues to this day. I am from the North, moved to the mid-West, and now live in the South. The subject down here is as fresh as a recent rain.

Thats really sad!

are you saying that everyone thinks the Civil War was only about slavery? It never was, and anyone who thinks so is seriously misinformed. It was just as much, if not more, about economics (of which slavery certainly played a part); and ideological differences that had been smoldering since the founding. And are smoldering still.

Has history been "rewritten"? Possibly. Likely, even--it's an inevitable process condensing historical acts through the long lense of hindsight. But I think the problem is more ignorance--the facts are there if one cares to look.

Lincoln needed to put the war on a moral footing to keep his people on board. The Emancipation Proclamation didn't free a single slave. It was limited to those areas which were in rebellion and by extention out of his control. He needed the abolitionists because war fatigue had set in and his new conceptualization of "Union" was not very appealing.

Slavery was already becoming economically untenable, as mechanization was coming on. Other countries were ending slavery without bloodshed and even in the States people were floating ideas for compensated manumission. Unfortunately, the rhetoric was so heated that reasonable compromise was not possible, since almost everyone believed that the other side was evil. Lincoln himself wanted to ship the freed slaves back to Africa. The way I look at it, slavery was part of the economic incompatibility of what was becoming two countries. The intensity of the times makes our red state blue state anger pale by comparison.

You'd be suprised at what has happened in history education. It is shifting again but there were a lot of social studies teachers trained to believe that saying it was about more than slavery was an insult to African-Americans. When I was in training the sociology majors were better at toeing the line as social studies teachers because they didn't know any history.

"immediately"
I should have written it that way.



btw- This thread was in response to something that popped up on another thread... it isn't as random as it looks.:)

You were certainly close enough.

The thing that amazes me about the Civil War is how alive it still is in the South. I'm from Maine, and I always lumped the Civil War in with the other old stuff I learned in history. The War of 1812, Spanish American War, etc. I thought the Revolutionary War was a far bigger deal than the Civil War because it's when we got our independence. Basically, I gave the Civil War no thought at all.

Then I moved to Northern Virginia. It was an eye opener. There are a lot of people around here from the South, and to them, the Civil War is more important than any other war in US history. If you ask them, they may say that the Revolutionary War, or the World Wars are more important, but they are only saying that because they think they are supposed to. Based on their actions, and what they talk about, the Civil War was just yesterday, and it is the most important war in US history.

It amazes me still. It was centuries ago, people!

In Texas, we celebrate something called "Juneteenth"--supposedly honoring the day the news of emancipation finally reached Way Out West.

Glatt, too true. They hold onto it very tightly.

I was in Myrtle Beach in N. or S. Carolina (can't remember which...) and I remember this beach shop where this woman and her child were shopping at. The boy was looking over a figurine of civil war soldiers. The mother said "Put that back, we don't need that." The boy put back the northern soldier figure. He said "Why not?" The mother said "You don't want that Yankee boy." The boy said "Why? But didn't the north win the war?" The mother responded with "Yeah, but they cheated."

That is a made up holiday just like freaking Kawanza is.

Not to people around here. I live in Georgia.

if you think that's bad, my mother was still holding onto the fact that we were Orangemen-- even made me wear orange on St. Patrick's Day. And that's what--a 300 year old conflict?

While GA had a hard time getting enough votes to secede in the first place, it was the last state readmitted. I don't think Sherman sat to well. Probably didn't like Mr Peabody, either.

History is written by the victors with discrepancies debated and questioned.

The whole point of the civil war was to "Preserve the Union." The confederacy challenged this preservation. Slavery was a huge subplot and probably the most important one. But Griff got it, the war was about preserving the Union. But getting rid of slavery was a huge perk in our nation's history.

What holidays weren't made up?

Birthdays.

Birthdays are made up. The date chosen is based on a standard method, but that method and the celebration is made up. Especially for people born on Feb 29.

The first one isn't made up. Well, the first one is, but the 0th one isn't.

The event isn't made up, but the holiday is. Just like the spring equinox is an astronomical event, but the Feast of Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary is a holiday.

hmmm... The "holiday" just says "this event happened on this day" which is a statement of fact, if you're standing right there, and the kid pops out, you don't have to look at a calendar, it just happens. Of course, I'm ignoring the fact that nobody celebrates 0th birthdays, as far as I know.

(from the bellyflop thread)Not directly, at least.The point of the 50/50 split was to prevent the "other side" from getting too much power in the Senate. The South was worried that if there were too many free states, there would be a federal ban on slavery. Or even an Amendment, as that too is based on state count.

- Acceptance of new states hinged on their position on slavery. That is a MAJOR issue. -

Right, the Civil War wasn't "to free the slaves". But slavery was at the base of most of the economic and cultural differences that caused the split between North and South. Claiming that slavery was a minor issue is as off-base as claiming that it was the only issue.

Sure they do, by passing out cigars, donuts, tax exemptions and hearty congrats... and the kid gets a tit.

If it's just a statement of fact, then it's not a holiday.

The economic differences were agricultural vs industrial which made them look at trade from an entirely different perspective and cultural differences were all over the ball park. There were plenty of southern farmers, eager to follow the stars and bars, that never owned a slave. In 1860, a male slave would bring thousands of dollars which made it a rich man's game.

June 19th, two months after the end of the war, was the last official public posting and reading of the proclamation. That's when they feel the proclamation was in effect nation wide. Of course that's a little nebulous, but I think that's the reasoning.

Both sides had plenty of small non-slaveholding farms. The economic differences were between the wealthy powerhouses- industrial vs plantation.
It wasn't the poor men making the 50/50 statehood deals. It wasn't the poor men who formed the CSA government.

I'll buy that.

for a dollar.

Well, strictly speaking it was 142 years ago. Still more than a century, I know, but less than two. I took a history class on the Civil War in college, from a professor who taught nothing but Civil War-related topics. I don't remember whether the idea was his or another scholar's, but he told us that statistically, considering all the civil wars in the world that we have records of, it usually takes a country about 200 years to completely recover from a civil war.

2065, here we come!!

The United States is not a "usual" country, for whatever that's worth. I think we have fully recovered if not become far greater than statistically what we should be.

I'll admit I took liberties, but only because I knew I could fall back on the idea that you don't have to have a number greater than 2 to use the plural. It was 1.42 centuries ago.

Edit: Of course, using that logic, the Iraq war has been going on for centuries. (0.04 centuries, to be exact.)

The general trend of any history class - as I've seen - is that you get the simple answer early on (The Civil War was about slavery), and then as you get older, the gray starts to come in (differing economic structures, social movements, international reactions, etc). From there comes the arguments.

I've always held on to an argument I came across in my junior year of high school - that the Proclamation was issued to make the war about slavery in order to use moral superiority to forestall any English or French intercession - military and/or otherwise - on the Southern side. To wit: post-Proclamation, as much as the English and French may have wanted to check the development of America as an economic rival, they could not rouse their populace to fight on behalf of (what was then perceived to be) the continuance of slavery.

Chewie de-cloaks to make an interesting point!

By 1860, I think the English had pretty much given up the Idea of reclaiming parts of the US. That said, it would be to their advantage to keep up the animosity between the North and South. The South provided the materials the wanted/needed, and market for their manufactured goods, competing with the North for that market. Plus two countries would be weaker than one, in the future.
That's why they were helping the South with money and supplies, and could have very well committed troops, being one of those rare times with no wars of there own going on(except New Zealand, I think).

So Chewbacca may be right as to the Emancipation Proclamation being a deterrent for foreign intervention. But I think it's prime effect is to set the stage for a huge insurgency within the CSA territory. Even if the slaves didn't openly revolt, they would be less inclined to help their masters.

That was the conclusion of the paper I wrote. :)

It was a twofer but the bottom line was foreign intervention was the only way the CSA was going to survive. They lacked the men and material to continue. The South actually debated freeing their slaves as a way to increase manpower. We forget that even for slaves the South was home and the blue army was foreign. The Northern Army was full of immigrants who considered freed slaves to be competition for jobs. The slaves were not universally treated well by the invading army, creating weird dynamics in places where slaves were treated decently (inside the context of the times).

More free blacks fought for the South than for the North, FAR more. There are still many predominantly black chapters of the Sons of Confederate Soldiers. Some close to here. They were integrated and had the same supplies and equipment in the South. Not by a long shot in the North. They got dregs and not all were even armed.
They were ordered into the most deplorable conditions, impossible odds... often. They were not wanted.
No so in the South, they were part of the regular army.
Southern free solders when taken as prisoners of war by the North were shot, just shot.
The South treated Northern black soldiers the same as Northern prisoners of war, same barracks, same food, same supplies.
Europe, having abolished slavery, many nations for a hundred years backed the South knowing that we had a long-term plan and our cause was just.
If the war was about slavery, this would never have happened.
"Freeing" slaves with no infrastructure caused many deaths and much disease, this was the tactic of the North, it was cruel to the slaves, more-so than to anyone else and was intentional.
Lincoln did not want slaves to be free or part of the Union, he stated this many times. How his legacy became what it is, is still a mystery.

Rkzen, are you trying to tell me, among other things, the 54th Massachusetts went into Battery Wagner without arms or equipment? Most improbable.

Several battalions of blacks were constituted in Virginia about February 1865. They never received arms nor saw any action.

I did not say "without" at all. I notice you did not quote me.. that would have looked silly.
They were amazing because they had sub-standard equipment and many shared guns and shoes. Many of those picked off the corpses of the fallen of both sides during previous battles, not issued.